NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign made a mistake by not holding an interview with her until more than a month after the election.
Harris' first in-person interview since launching her campaign on July 21 will be with CNN anchor Dana Bash on a show scheduled to air Thursday. Todd said Harris' delay in even one interview would mean she would be “subject to undue scrutiny” if she made any missteps on the campaign trail. (Related: Kamala Harris fails to distance herself from left-wing 2020 campaign despite aides' best efforts)
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'It reinforces this negative stereotype': Chuck Todd says Harris made a 'mistake' by delaying first interview pic.twitter.com/wb7DVnpgkI
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“I think the easiest way to defuse this is to go everywhere, doing local interviews and podcasts that allow her to go to friendly places and not so friendly places,” Todd said. “When you try to be laser-focused like that, you end up gravitating towards the big events.”
“After six interviews, we're overwhelmed with information and it all gets diluted, so I think in some ways it just reinforces the negative stereotypes that people had about her going into this campaign, which is that she worries too much. There's a fine line between thinking things through and being paralyzed by a decision. And the way she handled the media was wrong,” he continued.
Todd also noted that former President Donald Trump gave numerous interviews to media outlets of all political leanings in 2016, making any one interview ever more significant.
“They're just taking advantage of her weaknesses right now, and now if there's any missteps, this interview will bring more scrutiny than it needs to,” he added.
Harris' CNN interview will feature her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that the reason VP Harris won't do solo interviews is because she's incompetent.
“She can't do this alone,” Spicer said. “She wants to be commander in chief. This is CNN. This isn't hard. This is easy. Give me a break… This is pathetic.”
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright recently argued that Harris' past negative interviews are hindering her current campaign.
“Certainly, we've seen some damaging moments when she's spoken to reporters while she's been vice president, particularly in the first interview she gave in 2021 with Lester Holt about her work on immigration,” Wright said. “So I think that's something that her office and the vice president himself have always had in mind. And, of course, we've reported that she's had media training while she's been vice president.”
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